Today’s post comes from David Zipper, a Senior Fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative known for his writing on transportation policy, technology, and urban planning.
I wrote something similar to this a long time ago (2017!). Small towns would be a nice middle ground. Small towns are full of poor people and older people who either can't afford cars or are nervous to use them under certain conditions (such as night time).
They also have unbelievably easy roads with far fewer variables. I think AVs will get there but if they went to some now it would help build good will
In particular, little college towns, for drunk college students.
I’m a fan of David Zipper and his writing about traffic and vehicles. I don’t get the thinking on this, though - it reads like, “we couldn’t figure out how to get a taxi when we were 10 miles from the nearest town, so we need AVs in rural areas.”
If the local economy can barely support 1 full time taxi, where is the money to support AVs in rural areas going to come from? And why does it have to be AVs?
True, though if you are driving a $20k car making $40k/year, that is a lot less expensive than putting in waymos at ~$125k/each.
If the money is available to the rural area somehow, I would think a non-AV would be preferable, providing transportation and employment to a rural population.
The priority for any service should be providing the best service possible at the lowest price, not progressives side quests about goosing employment. That's part of why so much of transit can't get anything built in this country, because projects get riddled with extraneous objectives.
But fine let's take your math seriously. I don't know where you're going to find a $20K commercial grade vehicle, but I'll pretend.
An autonomous vehicle will provide 24-hour service. So factoring that in, you'll need three drivers (who — trust me — still won't be as reliable as the AV) to provide the same level of service. So now we're at $140,000 for *one year*.
Never mind the fact that what actually matters over time is *the marginal cost* per ride.
Robotaxi companies and supporters claim a lot of *potential* benefits. Which of those benefits become reality will depend on economics and incentives. A good place to start with critical thinking is to ask how well ride hail serves the proposed need, and why robotaxis will be different (or when they will be more than slightly cheaper). In rural areas too sparse to support robust ride hail, don't expect robotaxis to appear anytime soon.
Add to the long list of deterrents to AV service in rural America the lack of charging, cleaning, and servicing infrastructure. Mr. Zipper's objective is far more laudable than the practical. For the meaningful future, AV service in rural areas will only happen if heavily subsidized by state and local authorities.
Since all transit is subsidized, including the personal car (you don't build your own roads), that's probably fine. AVs could make subsidies go further.
The main cost of most transportation is the driver.
I agree. I was merely suggesting that the burden for providing transportation service in rural communities is on government agencies, not on private AV producers. Sadly, rural residents are disproportionately older age citizens, who can't or shouldn't be driving themselves. So the provision of transportation services to vital services like doctors visits, grocery shopping and social activities is particularly important in public transportation deserts.
It would be lovely to see some of those cute autonomous trolleys running routes in rural America, and I expect they would find that that was a good use of public resources.
I wrote something similar to this a long time ago (2017!). Small towns would be a nice middle ground. Small towns are full of poor people and older people who either can't afford cars or are nervous to use them under certain conditions (such as night time).
They also have unbelievably easy roads with far fewer variables. I think AVs will get there but if they went to some now it would help build good will
In particular, little college towns, for drunk college students.
https://observer.com/2017/04/pittsburg-kansas-autonomous-vehicles-navya-olli-local-motors-navigant-easy-mile/
I’m a fan of David Zipper and his writing about traffic and vehicles. I don’t get the thinking on this, though - it reads like, “we couldn’t figure out how to get a taxi when we were 10 miles from the nearest town, so we need AVs in rural areas.”
If the local economy can barely support 1 full time taxi, where is the money to support AVs in rural areas going to come from? And why does it have to be AVs?
The main cost of a taxi is the driver.
True, though if you are driving a $20k car making $40k/year, that is a lot less expensive than putting in waymos at ~$125k/each.
If the money is available to the rural area somehow, I would think a non-AV would be preferable, providing transportation and employment to a rural population.
The priority for any service should be providing the best service possible at the lowest price, not progressives side quests about goosing employment. That's part of why so much of transit can't get anything built in this country, because projects get riddled with extraneous objectives.
But fine let's take your math seriously. I don't know where you're going to find a $20K commercial grade vehicle, but I'll pretend.
An autonomous vehicle will provide 24-hour service. So factoring that in, you'll need three drivers (who — trust me — still won't be as reliable as the AV) to provide the same level of service. So now we're at $140,000 for *one year*.
Never mind the fact that what actually matters over time is *the marginal cost* per ride.
And then it's not even close.
As long as the cost to expand the cellular coverage is included, then I agree with the math.
Robotaxi companies and supporters claim a lot of *potential* benefits. Which of those benefits become reality will depend on economics and incentives. A good place to start with critical thinking is to ask how well ride hail serves the proposed need, and why robotaxis will be different (or when they will be more than slightly cheaper). In rural areas too sparse to support robust ride hail, don't expect robotaxis to appear anytime soon.
I recently wrote a blog post about how AVs should be integrated in the transport systems of rural areas: https://transportlc.org/posts/why-avs-need-a-different-approach-in-rural-areas
It goes into a bit more depth than David's excellent article, but agrees with his basic argument.
Add to the long list of deterrents to AV service in rural America the lack of charging, cleaning, and servicing infrastructure. Mr. Zipper's objective is far more laudable than the practical. For the meaningful future, AV service in rural areas will only happen if heavily subsidized by state and local authorities.
Since all transit is subsidized, including the personal car (you don't build your own roads), that's probably fine. AVs could make subsidies go further.
The main cost of most transportation is the driver.
I agree. I was merely suggesting that the burden for providing transportation service in rural communities is on government agencies, not on private AV producers. Sadly, rural residents are disproportionately older age citizens, who can't or shouldn't be driving themselves. So the provision of transportation services to vital services like doctors visits, grocery shopping and social activities is particularly important in public transportation deserts.
It would be lovely to see some of those cute autonomous trolleys running routes in rural America, and I expect they would find that that was a good use of public resources.